The Pool
by Rose Stetson
Summary: Eadlyn has a request. She's thought it all out, and she's sure that it won't backfire, but is she missing something?


"Daddy?"

I leaned down to kiss Eadlyn's forehead as America went over to say goodnight to Ahren. "Yes, princess?"

She giggled the way she always did when I called her that. "Daddy!"

I chuckled to myself as a smile played on my lips. She always thought it was so funny that her title could also be her nickname. I just felt like whether I was King or a pauper, she'd always be my little princess. "What is it, Eadlyn?"

"You know how we get one birthday wish?" She played with the edge of her comforter between her fingers.

I nodded. When America and I had first announced the expansion of our family, we had been inundated with gifts from heads of state. We immediately decided to set aside the ideas of traditional birthday gifts and beginning a new tradition, the birthday wish.

Our children would have one reasonable request which America and I would make happen in honor of their birthday. Up until now, it had been requests as simple as sharing the day with America and me or inviting a favorite musician to their birthday celebration.

"What if Ahren and I used our birthday wishes together?" Eadlyn asked as she turned her eyes up to me.

Immediately, Ahren got up on his elbow so he could face her. "Oh no you don't, Eadlyn! You can't take my birthday wish!"

I turned a glance back to Eadlyn who had arms crossed over her chest. "You don't even know my idea yet! Maybe it will be fun for all of us!"

"I wanna go to France," Ahren said, turning immediately to America as if getting his wish in early might prevent him from losing his wish to his sister. "Queen Daphne is so nice, and I like playing with Princess Camille!"

America stiffened, and I wanted to groan.

Thanks a lot, Dad. It's not like America has to deal with Daphne as a head of state for the rest her life. No, you had to go and make her jealous just so you could manipulate her into dropping out of the Selection.

The simmering anger I'd had for my father almost as long as I could remember was back, churning in my stomach like a meal that had settled poorly.

"We'll talk about it later, Ahren," America said as she tucked him in again. She leaned in as well as she could and kissed Ahren's forehead. "And you don't have to give up any wishes if you don't want to."

Ahren breathed a sigh of relief.

"Why do you ask, Eady?"

I turned my attention back to my daughter who was making a face at Ahren.

That was one diplomacy tactic, I supposed. I wouldn't implement it any time soon, but that didn't mean I hadn't been tempted on occasion.

"Well, I have kind of a big wish," she admitted as she lowered her arms and settled back against her pillows.

"Going to France isn't exactly a small wish," America said as she stood and walked back to us, her arms resting on her extended stomach.

"But Mo-om!"

Ahren was back on his elbow.

"I didn't say no," she said, turning back to him with a raised eyebrow. "But you have to admit that it's a big request."

He sighed heavily as he sulked and settled back into bed. "Fine!"

"What was your big wish?" I asked, turning my attention back to Eadlyn.

"I want a pool."

My stomach dropped. "What?"

Eadlyn's eyes grew earnest. "Daddy, you know how you said we couldn't go to the beach because it wasn't safe with all the crowds? I came up with a solution! We can just get a pool!"

I broke out into a cold sweat. I stretched my back muscles as I could almost feel each strike of my father's cane against my back.

She was prattling on and on about how having a private pool would be the solution to a host of problems. If the kids knew how to swim and they were on a boat which crashed, they could swim long enough to save themselves thereby saving the monarchy. If there was a pool, we could all get enough exercise to offset the stress of our positions.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I had to admit that she was making a number of good points.

But I just couldn't—

I could feel America's eyes on me, but I was grateful that she was taking a step back to let me handle this on my own.

I put my hand up and looked at Eadlyn who stopped talking almost immediately. "We can't get a pool."

"Why not?" She looked shocked as if she'd never been told no before. I realized with a start that I couldn't recall ever having actually not given her permission for something she wanted.

But I could imagine being the only family member not utilizing this resource. How much more cajoling would I be able to endure if there was actually a pool in the backyard? At what point would I end up sitting on the sidelines watching my family while cursing the stripes on my back once again while the kids wondered why I couldn't be in there with them? Wondering like I once had, what was wrong with them that their father wouldn't choose to spend time with them?

"That's just the way it is," I said with a shake of my head and a shrug.

"But Daddy, you're the king! You can make it change!" Eadlyn said as she sat up in bed again. "It's just a pool!"

I'm the king, I thought to myself. Why can't I just erase the scars on my back? Wasn't I supposed to be able to do anything? Wasn't I supposed to be one of the most powerful people in the world?

"Eadlyn!" I snapped, my own mind spiraling downward. "I said no!"

She sat back, shocked at the tone of my voice. "But Daddy—"

"You can't have everything you want!" I cried in exasperation as I stood. I had to get out of the room. I felt like the walls were closing in on me, the memory of my father stealing the oxygen out of the room. "A pool is out of the question."

Eadlyn crossed her arms as a flame seemed almost to erupt in her eyes, a spark of indignation she had gotten entirely from her mother. "Yeah? Well, when I'm Queen, the first thing I'm going to do is get someone to put in a pool!"

I felt the blood rush to my face, the familiar pull of rage boiling over.

I opened my mouth to speak as America put her hand on my arm. "I think it's bedtime, young lady," she said, her voice stern.

Instantly, my anger calmed, and once again, I found myself grateful for my wife. I had been about to yell something about that being over my dead body, but the truth was that it likely would be over my dead body. That was how I'd gotten the crown, after all.

I felt sick to my stomach. How many times would I catch myself acting like my father?

My heart sank into my belly. I was such a terrible father.

My mind was brought back to the present as America guided me to the door. "Good night, my angels," she whispered as she turned out the light. "Sleep tight."

"Good night, Mama!" Eadlyn responded as she rolled over.

"Good night, Mom!" Ahren called. "Good night, Dad!"

My heart was in my throat. I could barely open my mouth to attempt a good night before I slipped out behind my wife.

Eadlyn hated me.

I was just like my father.

America walked into her suite, her silence both welcome and unnerving. I could only imagine what she was going to release when she finally found her tongue. I was impressed she hadn't yelled at me earlier.

"Just say it," I finally breathed as she began removing her earrings and putting them into her maid's outstretched hands. "Just say whatever it is that's on your mind."

She didn't look at me, only nodded to the woman who slipped out of the room without another word. Only then did she turn back to me, her expression unreadable. "I'm not going to say anything, Maxon."

My gut twisted.

I felt almost exactly the way I did whenever my mother would murmur that she was disappointed in me. It didn't happen often, but boy, when those words came out, I wanted to crawl under a rock and die.

I scoffed. Who was this woman? The woman I married would have had a thousand words at the tip of her tongue for the monster I was back there in the nursery.

I could only be grateful that little Kaden was in a different room from the twins. At least one of my children wouldn't have seen that display.

Maybe one of my children would still love me in the morning.

America eased herself onto the piano bench, one hand under her pregnant belly, and my heart squeezed. It wouldn't be long before we met this newest member of our family.

One more child for you to disappoint, the voice in the back of my head murmured.

It sounded strangely like my father's.

I shuddered.

When would he ever leave me alone? When could I ever find peace from the memory of Clarkson Schreave?

When those scars on your back are as smooth as a baby's skin, the voice sneered.

I wanted to press my hands to my temples in an attempt to block out this voice, to stop this voice from speaking to me in such a hateful tone. But how does one silence oneself?

A single note broke the silence in the room. It was high, clear, and sweet, and more importantly, it silenced the voice in my head.

I looked over at my wife whose fingers lay poised on the piano keys. She must have removed the pins from her hair because it fell across her shoulders in curls like unfettered ribbon.

She brought up her left hand in an accompaniment as she played a hauntingly beautiful song. I didn't know that I had ever heard it before. Had she branched out into composition sometime in the last few years of our marriage? I would have given anything to hear an original composition played by my wife.

I felt my pounding heart begin to calm, the throbbing headache which had begun in the hallway outside the nursery starting to ebb. It could only have been more relaxing if America had managed to run her fingers through my hair as she played the enchanting piece.

That was the real reason I had bought her four pianos as strangely selfish as it might seem. I needed her music almost like the air that I breathed. It was the only thing that could really calm me, protect me from the crippling anxiety and self-doubt which would strike suddenly and mercilessly at the slightest provocation.

I wanted her pianos as close to us as any first aid kit.

America's eyes were distant as she looked at the keys instead of the bare music stand in front of her. It amazed me that she could play such hypnotic music without even the slightest written note to anchor her to the melody.

The tone changed from a soaring melody to a jumble of discordant chords. Her fingers, considerably further down on the keyboard than they had been only moments ago, flew over the keys as if a flurry of bumblebees were threatening their lithe perfection.

I stared, in awe, as I realized that she might as well have reached into the recesses of my heart and pulled out every conflicting thought and hammering heart beat I had experienced in the last few moments and played it out for the world to hear. Was that what it felt like to play music? To expose your soul for the world to hear and to judge each fleeting moment?

I was suddenly grateful that, at my heart, I was a photographer. Music seemed far too painful right now.

And then as America cocked her head to the side and hovered her fingers above the keys, the discord was gone. The melodious songbird had returned like the peace which settled over me.

I was embarrassed to feel my cheek was wet. I'd only cried a handful of times since I'd married America, and three of those times had been at the births of our children. It seemed odd that tears should be so close at a moment like this.

She played the final note, and she released her fingers with a thoughtful flourish as if she was bidding the performance, never to be ever truly repeated, goodbye.

"I love it when you play," I whispered as I sank onto the bed.

My father would have had a word about my posture, but I was content to droop under the weight of his memory for a moment while I recovered my strength. As America had once reminded me, even Atlas sank under the weight of his burden over time.

She turned to face me, her hand back under her round belly. "When I first heard that song, I thought of you," she said with a faint smile on her lips. It wasn't a happy smile, but neither was it a terribly sad smile. It was just the tiniest upturn of her pink lips. I don't think I could have handled it well if she'd either tried to be happy or sad for me. It would have been disingenuous to me as I felt neither emotion at the moment. Neither feeling seemed quite right.

I raised an eyebrow in her direction.

"You manage with such poise and calm so much of the time that I sometimes forget there's so much churning beneath the surface." She closed the lid of the piano before she pressed her hand on the lid.

In a moment, I was on my feet to help her but she waved me away. "I may be eight months pregnant," she teased, "but I think I can still manage to walk around my own bedroom just fine."

I couldn't help but laugh as she sat on the bed beside where I had been sitting only a moment earlier. I sat beside her, and she took my hand in hers. She rested her cheek against my shoulder, and I leaned my cheek against the top of her head.

"Maxon?"

"Hm?"

"I'm here if you want to talk about it."

I sighed heavily. "I know. I just—I don't want to have anything to talk about."

She was silent. This time, I was only grateful. She really wasn't angry with me, only concerned. As awful as that felt, at least I didn't feel a wedge between us. At least she was close to me.

I inhaled and exhaled three or four more times before I spoke. "She hates me."

America was silent. I knew if she had spoken immediately, I would have likely contradicted her. If she took her time, it at least gave the appearance that she was thinking through her answer.

I knew that had been one of her goals almost from the moment she'd discovered the truth of my father, that she would be more careful and thoughtful about her actions. It had made her a superb Queen, a stunning mother, and a spectacular wife.

"Eadlyn doesn't know the whole story," she whispered. "And that's fine. She doesn't need to right now." She exhaled. "But it also means that she will likely be angry about this pool idea for a little while."

I swallowed. "Ahren said good night to both of us. Eadlyn only said good night to you."

I felt America's nod against my shoulder. "And trust me, I think we're going to see the reverse before too much time passes."

I grimaced. I could only imagine America and Eadlyn in a couple of years. They were so similar in temperament, even if they looked so dissimilar in feature, that adolescence looked like it might be a rocky road between mother and daughter.

If I ever managed to get back into Eadlyn's good graces, I could imagine myself acting as a mediator between the two women someday. I was not looking forward to it.

I reached over and pressed my hand to America's belly. I could feel a strong kick from our baby as if he wanted to scold me for disrupting him.

But as much as I wanted to feel joy in that moment, I didn't. I only felt the crippling weight of impending failure.

"I'm such a terrible father," I whispered.

I almost didn't realize I had spoken aloud except that America immediately straightened and let go of my hand. She pressed her fingers to my chin and turned my head until I faced her, a fire burning in her eyes. It wasn't unlike the fire I'd just seen in my firstborn's eyes when she'd announced that her first act as Queen would be to install a pool on the palace grounds.

"You are not a terrible father."

She enunciated each word as if she was willing me to believe her, like slowing down and emphasizing each syllable would somehow hammer it into my thick head.

I rolled my eyes. "A pool isn't really that ridiculous a request, especially from a princess who has a movie theater in the basement." I sighed. "She even made pretty articulate arguments for why having a pool would be a good idea." One snippet of the conversation I'd heard caught my attention. "Did she seriously suggest that if they were to drown, there were enough guards stationed around the palace to save them?"

America nodded with a tiny chuckle of her own. "She was rather persuasive."

I dropped my head to my hands and my arms to my knees. "I should be able to give her this. I should be able to do this one thing for her."

America was quiet as she ran her fingers over my back. My ugly, knotted, scar-riddled back.

"Who says?"

My brow furrowed. Had America just said something to me?

I turned to look over my shoulder at her, and I caught her serious glance in my direction. "Who says?"

"Who says what?" I asked, sitting up as I turned to her.

She shrugged. "Who says that it's Eadlyn's right to swim anywhere? Who says that you have to provide her with every little novelty she gets into her head? Who says you owe your children anything other than life and love?"

I eyed her pointedly. "I think Eadlyn would argue that not getting her a pool isn't exactly evidence of my love."

"You said it yourself," America continued as if she hadn't heard me. "Not everyone gets what they want. That doesn't mean they're unloved."

She looked at my back, her hands tracing one of the welts with her fingers.

I grimaced.

She must have seen me because her hands stopped as she turned a serious eye and pursed lips in my direction. "If I had a magic wand right now, and I could do any one thing in the world, I would rewrite history so you never got one of these scars."

I opened my mouth to speak. Wasn't she the one who kept telling me that these scars were the very things which kept me in touch with some of the problems of the common people? Was she changing her tune?

She shook her head as if she had heard my thoughts. "Oh, I know what I said," she snapped, somewhat irritated. "And I stand by it. But that's the me who can't do anything about these scars. That's the me who has no magic wand."

I reached for her hand and pulled her fingers to my lips.

She sighed as she looked over at me. "Maxon, I'm thinking about Aspen and Lucy. I mean, they'd be terrific parents, but they're not getting what they want."

I nodded, slowly.

"And I can't help them which isn't what I want either," she continued with an exasperated groan.

I nodded again.

I might have had a few misgivings myself about lending my wife's uterus to her ex-boyfriend and his wife, but it had been excruciating to watch the advisors explain to her that her body was not her own.

"The truth is that we all have things we want and wish but which are entirely out of our control," she said softly as she looked back at me. "And Eadlyn will survive the lesson."

I sighed. "But will she want to have anything to do with me?"

America shook her head as a tender look of wonder overcame her features. "You don't know, do you? Eadlyn adores you. That's why your "no" stung so much for her."

I winced.

"But she'll survive because she's strong," America continued. "And you have shown her love in a thousand other ways that will protect your relationship while she gets over this hurdle."

I closed my eyes, letting her words sink into my brain. This wouldn't define my relationship with Eadlyn? It wouldn't destroy the family unity America and I had worked so hard to build?

"I hear him, you know."

"Hear who?" America asked, turning her attention to me. I could almost feel her critical eye as she studied my profile.

I inhaled sharply. I didn't really want to have this conversation, but it seemed that it was the only way to move forward. "My dad."

She snaked her arm through mine and grasped my hand with her own as she leaned down as close to me as she could with our unborn baby in the way. I don't know how I knew—it was probably the fact that we'd been married for so long—but I could feel her steeling herself to ask the question she dreaded most.

"What does he say?"

Her voice was calm, even, but it seemed to me that there was a slight tremble she was trying to suppress with each word.

"That I'm a disappointment to my kids. That I'll never amount to much as a father." I sighed as I looked back at her. "You know, same old, same old."

She was quiet for a moment as if she was processing what I was saying.

"Your father was a liar," she said simply.

It shocked me even now to hear someone speak so directly opposed to my father's legacy.

"Excuse me?"

She sighed. "Maxon, you know for a fact that he provoked the war with New Asia over a stupid trade negotiation. And even then, the whole thing was a complete farce!"

I had to hand that to her. She wasn't wrong.

"He was unfaithful to his wife, manipulating her at the very least to believe that he was completely faithful so that he could continue pleasing only his own desires, and at the very worst leading her to believe that she was so inadequate to meet his needs that it would seem like his infidelity was completely avoidable and yet simultaneously utterly necessary," she said.

Again, I was impressed that my wife's judgmental anger wasn't coming out. She was really trying to sound more like an attorney and less like an angered daughter-in-law who had been unfairly targeted by his wrath on more than one occasion.

She also had a rather good grasp of my father's cunning self-gratification.

"He was a terrible monarch who only did what was best for his own self-preservation, and even then was utterly inept at it."

I couldn't help but laugh in astonishment at her accusations. "You're not pulling any punches, are you?"

"You are a far superior monarch than your father," she said simply. "And an infinitely better husband."

"Can't say the bar was that high," I said with a derisive snort.

She placed her hand on my arm. "Maxon, your father lied about matters of state, provoking a war with a country which could have made a powerful ally. He provoked his own people into killing him and his wife, whom he allowed to take the bullet for him."

Her eyes grew hard. "He was a liar and a coward. He was so power-hungry that he was corroding his own agenda with each step he took." Her lips pursed into a thin, tight line. "I will not have you believing whatever the shadow of his memory is trying to say about you."

The fierceness with which she said it left me astonished. I did the only thing I could think of to do. I reached a hand behind her neck and pulled her close to me, bringing our lips together in a kiss.

I leaned my forehead against hers as I stole a glance into her deep, blue eyes. "You won't have me believing him, hm?"

She shook her head as tears welled up in her eyes. "You're the best man I've ever known, Maxon Schreave. You're my husband, the father of my children, and the ruler of my country. And there's no one I would trust it all to more than you."

Tears stung my eyes as I kissed her again, trying to express to her the thanks I couldn't quite articulate in words.

"I love you, Maxon Schreave," she whispered against my lips.

"I love you too, America Singer," I breathed, my fingers entwined with her hair.

"That's America Schreave to you," she teased as her cheek brushed mine and her breath tickled my ear.

"And may it make my father roll over a hundred thousand more times in his grave," I whispered against her cheek as I held her close.


End file.
